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My brother has always teased me about having a morbid curiosity. I have always objected to this, although receiving daily emails about infectious disease incidence and outbreak reports is certainly not exactly helping me my case. The teasing started when I was eleven years old and I voluntarily sat still long enough to read a chapter of The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston. I never really enjoyed reading when I was a kid. I much preferred playing sports or running around outside, but this book was different. After I read the first chapter I was happy to skip swim team practice to stay home and read. The thriller about scientists' efforts to identify, contain and treat the Ebola virus fascinated me and inspired me so much that upon finishing it, I declared to my family "That's what I want to do!"

I suppose that is how I found myself, over a decade later, stepping into a biohazard suit to enter a pressure-locked AIDS research laboratory, and later, harvesting and growing brain stem cells. Working as a research technician during and after college in a laboratory devoted to curing AIDS, and another dedicated towards understanding brain tumors was like a dream come true. The innovative molecular biology techniques, complex animal modeling and international collaborations between laboratories was exhilarating and exciting, and filled me with optimism- in the beginning anyway. As I became more involved in different research projects, I realized the huge volume of information the scientific community has yet to figure out, and my enthusiasm for solving health problems through science dwindled. With problems like AIDS, heart disease, malaria, and malnutrition, the world cannot afford to wait for research to strike gold. These problems cannot afford the luxury of time.

Scientific research is certainly not fruitless, but I think it's important to look beyond biology and the physical environment in the fight against disease. I believe that we need to use social epidemiology to study the social, economic and political contributing factors of disease and poor health, in order to create and institute more timely and perhaps more effective preventive and curative measures. The countries of Africa are in dire need of these studies, as they house the world's most serious, but also preventable health crises.

Like biological research, epidemiological research a hefty task, but completing it is far simpler. The root of social epidemiology is observation: talking to the people, witnessing their living conditions, feeling their struggles, and understanding their cultures. I want to go to Africa to actively participate in social epidemiology. I want to do more than read about disease, or think about what studies or preventions have yet to be done. Despite my participation in research and my education, I do not feel that I truly understand the health issues of Africa, because I am lacking the emotions, feelings, and personal connections that only first hand experience can elicit and provide. It is this intangibility of first hand experience and social that will help me better understand the root of health problems and how to best improve them. I am determined help improve Africa's health problems by one day going to Africa, and collecting and sharing my own personal experiences and observations. The only thing in question is when and how I will get there.